Decoding Your Literary Agent Response: What Did It Mean?
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Querying literary agents in the hopes that one of them agrees to represent your book is a challenging process. But what's often harder is the part where you're waiting to hear back from them. When you eventually do see an agent's name pop up in your inbox, it can be both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.
Literary agent responses can be difficult to decode and decipher, and rejections can indicate different things, so I'm going to walk you through all possible responses you potentially could get from agents and explain what you should do in response.
The Form Rejection
This is admittedly not the literary agent response that you wanted, but it is also the most common and standard response: the form rejection.
This looks something like: “Dear writer, thank you for reaching out and letting me review your work, but I'm going to decline at this time. I sincerely appreciate you considering me for this project and wish you all the best with your writing career.”
This means the agent likely quickly determined that your book wasn't a right fit for them, such as it being the wrong genre, or they may have seriously considered it but just didn’t have the time to write up a more personalized response.
In this situation, the best and only response is to brush it off, cross the agent off your list, and keep querying. Just because one agent rejected you doesn't mean there's not someone else out there who would love to work with you.
The Personalized Rejection
A personalized rejection has a lot of the same copy from the form rejection, but also offers specific feedback.
An example would be: “Dear writer, thank you for reaching out and letting me review your work, but I'm going to decline at this time. Your premise is interesting, but unfortunately I didn't connect with the narrator's voice. I sincerely appreciate you considering me for this project and wish you all the best with your writing career.”
What this means is the agent did take the time to read through your sample pages and your query thoughtfully, and they considered taking on your project.
Now, it's still a rejection, so what should you do in this situation? First, judge if their feedback resonates with you. If they bring up a feedback point you’ve never heard before, it might just be their opinion, and another agent may feel differently. But, if you've heard the same response from multiple agents or maybe your beta readers have brought up the same point, then you should consider revising your manuscript again with the feedback in mind.
In this example, the agent didn't respond to the narrator's voice well. If you received this feedback, you could look at the first 10 pages of your manuscript and see if there's something that could be adjusted. If you agree that the narrator may not be coming across well–such as they’re too sarcastic or too wishy-washy–you can try to edit it and hopefully see success from future queries.
However, if you determine that you don’t agree with the feedback and that your narrator’s voice is vital to keep as-is because it is important to their character arc, then you can disregard it and keep querying literary agents with the existing materials.
The Manuscript Request
The manuscript request is what every author wants to hear back from an agent, as it is the agent requesting to read the entire book. This means the agent was intrigued by your query letter and sample pages, and is excited to see the entire project.
What you do in this situation is pretty straightforward. You send the manuscript! If you don't hear back from the agent within three or four weeks, feel free to send a follow-up. A long waiting period doesn't necessarily mean they didn't like your book. Agents often have a lot on their plate to read, so it’s likely they just haven't gotten to it yet.
If you’re waiting to hear back from multiple agents and you receive a manuscript request from one of them, a tip is that you can tell those other agents that someone has requested your manuscript. This can potentially make them bump your query up their priority list, as they now know you have an interested party on the line. However, some agents specifically say not to follow up with them unless you have received an offer of representation (not just a manuscript request), so make sure you follow their specific guidelines.
The Revise and Resubmit
Another literary agent response type is called a revise and resubmit. This response usually comes after the manuscript request, where the agent says they like certain aspects of the book but it needs more work in others. They will give you that constructive feedback and encourage you to resubmit to them if you make those revisions.
What you should do in this situation is similar to what I said in the last point. If you agree with the feedback or if you've heard the same feedback from multiple people, consider revising according to that feedback. After all, this response means the agent was close to offering you representation, but they were held back by the points they’re offering feedback on.
This is a very encouraging response and if you are able to do that work, there is definitely a possibility they will offer you representation. If you find yourself needing help with incorporating the feedback, you can consider working with a professional editor to take their feedback and integrate it in the manuscript.
However, remember that if the agent's feedback doesn't make sense to you, you have no obligation to follow their feedback. It's your book at the end of the day, and if their feedback doesn't resonate, that probably means the two of you weren't a right fit to begin with. Don't feel pressured to change your book just because an agent requested you to do so, as there’s no hard guarantee that they will offer you representation.
The Offer of Representation
The best literary agent response is a discussion about representation. This would come after the manuscript request if and when the agent likes what they see and is interested to work with you.
This means they want to move forward in the process and help you get your book published. What you're going to do next is have an honest and open conversation with the literary agent, likely over the phone, and discuss your vision for the book and what you're looking for in a publishing partner.
If you are in touch with other agents at this point, you could let them know that someone has extended an offer of representation, because it could also bump you up their priority list. You don’t want to withdraw your query just yet, as you still want to take your time deciding if you want to work with this agent or not.
In the ideal situation, you would have different options to consider to make sure you find the agent whose communication style best matches your own. Don't feel like you have to go with the first agent who offered you representation. Also, if you are in the situation where there are multiple offers of representation, don't rush! Choosing who will represent you is a big decision and a good agent won’t pressure you to make a decision quickly.
If it works out with your ideal agent, then you can sign with them and be on your way to getting traditionally published!
The No Response
Now that I’ve gone through all of the different responses you might get from a literary agent, I do want to mention the cases where you might not hear back at all.
This could mean a couple of things. Maybe your query letter is buried deep in the agent’s submissions inbox because there are just too many queries to respond to, or perhaps the agent did review it but could not send a response. Sometimes agents will state on their website they can't necessarily respond to every query and that you should consider it a rejection after a certain period of time.
If you don't hear back from an agent, try to keep your head up and keep going! I see too many writers give up after sending out their first batch of queries because they didn't hear back or they only got rejections.
If traditional publishing is your dream, you need to just keep trying. There are thousands of agents out there and just because five, ten, or even a hundred rejected you doesn't mean there's not someone out there who will see your potential. The literary agent querying process is a challenging one, but the payoff will be well worth it.
Thank you so much for reading, and happy querying!
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